Hello Noor

Just wanted to reach out after seeing so much of my own experience described in your latest post. I also found these forums in an attempt to deal with the heartbreak of being broken up with in my first relationship. The circumstances are different to yours but like you I tried desperately to make things work, overlooking key needs of mine, compromising, over accommodating because I wanted her to be the one for me. But rationally, she so clearly wasn’t. From my perspective, she was able to “just quit” and move on as you describe, and I too have found that incredibly hurtful.

I too was incredibly scared of putting myself out there again. Of even considering dating. After a few months, I did, and I dated someone over the lockdown period. That too didn’t work out; after meeting up in person she said it made her realise she wasn’t over her last relationship . I was again hurt – and ashamed that things had failed, despite my best efforts. However, I do feel that having been broken up with before, I was much more equipped to deal with the blow of the rejection, and I knew how to take care of myself better too. For example, instead of trying to keep in contact, hoping that things would be different and she would change her mind as I did with my ex, I cut contact immediately. It was difficult at first, but because of my first experience, I knew it would get easier with time, and it has. I have only contacted her once, to wish her happy birthday. I also suggested we get a drink which she said sounded great, but then hasn’t  contacted me to arrange it as she said she would.  With my ex, I would have followed up and chased, but this time I am adamant this person does not deserve my time and energy because she has shown as much. Like you, I always try to see the good in people and take them at their word, and I used to feel it was my fault if they didn’t follow through. However, I am slowly it surely learning to recognise that others choosing not to follow through   has no bearing on my self worth, and it is a way of filtering themselves out of my life, which I am ultimately better off for. I – and you – deserve genuine people in our lives who put in effort equal to what we do.

Still, it’s difficult. I get frustrated at myself that I still think about these people, and how my relationships with them, didn’t work out daily, even months later. However, our brains will do what they will do – these thoughts will come no matter how much we wish we could forget sometimes – the trick is to observe them as just thoughts without getting hooked into them.

I really get what you mean about missing companionship even though you are used to being single. I feel the same – I guess it’s something about knowing what you are missing out on, whereas before we were ignorant to what falling in love was like. And while that hurts, I think we are lucky to know what it feels like; because that shows it’s possible for us, and can therefore happen again.

While I am back to being single and hesitant to date, I take comfort in the fact that when I am ready, I will go in wiser and more secure in myself than I did the last time. And whenever it happens that I enter a relationship again, I will be able to communicate my needs more clearly, and be more confident in letting go if those needs aren’t being met. And letting go will hurt like hell, just like it did the first time, but I know it’s possible because I’ve done it before. So I think that while of course it would be nice if things had worked out the first time, or in my case, even the second, we just have to keep trying, and learning and loving – especially ourselves – along the way.

Love and best wishes as you continue to heal.

Dear Noor:

I just noticed that you posted back to me a moment ago; otherwise, I would have responded sooner.

You are welcome. I think that distracting yourself and focusing on work is a good approach. It is also a good approach for you to look into the relationship you had further, as well as looking into the “many negative examples” of relationships in your family, so that you can become clear about what you need, and what you don’t need.

Many marriages outside the “traditional cultural weddings where two very incompatible people come together” don’t work either, because marriages are difficult, whether they are arranged or love marriages. People often don’t understand what they need, so they don’t make good choices for themselves. If you look, over time, at the relationship you had and the relationships you observed in your family, you will know better what it is that you need.

Anytime you want to, if you want to, share about those marriages you observed in your family, the marriages that affected you so badly and that turned off to the idea of wanting a relationship of your own (before having your first relationship).

The longing for him, that’s not about him being the right man for you, or the relationship having been good. It’s about the simple but very intense, universal human longing for companionship of the romantic kind.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by .

Dear Noor:

Your recent post reads intelligent and insightful. Reads like you have a good understanding of what motivated you to stay away from romantic relationships, and then, in the one relationship you had, you tried too hard “to make it work no matter what”.

“I used to also get angry at myself when I craved a romantic relationship”- imagine a food that you crave, maybe a particular cake: you eat it, enjoy it, maybe have too much too quickly, and you get sick. When you feel sick you say to yourself: I will never eat this cake again! But over time, you forget the incident and you crave the cake again. Similarly, I imagine after you recover from this breakup, you will crave a romantic relationship again.

But next time, make sure you get to know the man bit by bit, over time (similar to eating a small slice of cake at a time, have a second slice if the first slice was good).

I am fine, thank you for asking. Do post again anytime you want to, I would like to read how you doing as time goes on.

anita

Dear Noor:

Like I wrote last night, your thinking is rational and your progress is excellent, but it takes a long time for the heart to catch up with the rational thinking. Your appetite and sleep patterns will improve- try guided meditations in bed, before going to sleep, and a couple during the day, maybe this will help with your appetite, sleep and the overthinking.

“It is not the length of the relationship, rather how much invested I was which makes it difficult”- I agree. It is clear to me that you were invested in the wrong person.

“I can’t seem to clear my head from everything that happened… I need clarity as to how someone does what he did to another individual. How can a person be so unempathetic?”

Although you rationally understand quite a bit, you don’t understand enough. I re-read your posts on this thread and will proceed to try and understand more myself. Maybe I can help you some with the clarity that you need. I am guessing this will be a long post.

It seems to me that on one hand you know that he has been and is a dishonest man who lies, but on the other hand it is unbelievable to you, so you are not sure. Look at the title of your thread: “Claims he is..”, the evidence that you don’t believe he has been telling you the truth is in the verb “Claims”. There is a lot more evidence in your original post (before we started communicating) and later in your posts to your belief that he lied to you: “that is what he told me… claiming that it was a bit too fast… I believed him… I gave him the benefit of doubt… a lot of other ‘fake’ promises.. I had this gut feeling that he was not telling me the whole truth”.

But like I suggested, part of you believes he lied, another part of you does not believe that- and that went on for the entire relationship, believing and not believing: this is why you used to ask him so many questions, and the same questions, again and again: you didn’t believe the answers he gave you, so you asked again. And again.

Let’s look at his lies (some lies are evident, other lies are less evident, and we’ll never know because it will take a reliable private detective agency to investigate in the US and in India, and without such investigation… we’d never know:

1) “when we first started dating I told him that even if his family does not drink alcohol but mine does.. will that be a problem? He clearly said no and then as the relationship progressed he said that just try to make sure they do not drink in front of my parents”- either the early “no” was a lie, or his later suggestion was a lie.

2) “he addressed my concerns reassuring me his parents would never have a problem.. I can’t live without you so I will definitely fight for you. This really threw me off as I did not understand what exactly he would fight for”- you got it right: if he believed that his parents would never have a problem, why would he need to fight them for you?!

Regarding telling them about you: “he wants to make sure he does it when he does not have to worry about his academics”- if he believed that they would “never have a problem”, then he wouldn’t have considered it to be a problem that will interrupt his academics.

3) “He told me again, not to worry too much because he is not close to his parents and since he has never told them about any girls before in his life.. He used to paint a VERY liberal picture of his family to me. He told me how they are very accepting”-  I don’t know what he was referring to as far as his parents being accepting. My comment is: if his parents were “very accepting” of him, he would have been close to them.

4) When he allegedly told his parents about you, “The first day they reacted happily as he tells me”- maybe he told them, maybe he didn’t tell them at all. You wrote: “I do feel he did tell his parents as the details in the conversations seemed too real for him to be lying”- an effective liar does provide a lot of details that seem very real so to make his lies convincing. Think of watching a movie on the big screen, it is all the details that make the story seem very real. But the story is not real.

You live in Canada, his parents live in India, you never met them in person or otherwise. You don’t know anyone who knows his parents: what evidence do you have that he told them anything about you, other than his words?

5. “The first day they reacted happily as he tells me. They asked questions, wanted to see my photos, wanted to know about my family, and were happy we were from the same religion… Two days after telling his parents, his mom threw a tantrum saying she will not accept this relationship as she did not choose me. He asked her why she couldn’t at least talk to me first and she just refused. She had no reason for denial”, “it is very unusual to believe their extreme changes in reaction within a span of three days “-

– it is unusual but possible: some people are unusual, act irrationally and impulsively, throwing tantrums, unpredictable. Thing is, from your description of your ex, he is very rational, calculating, plans ahead, not at all impulsive. If his parents, or his mother in particular, was such an extremely irrational and impulsive person, making choices with “no reason”, I doubt that your ex would have told her anything. If he told her, I don’t think he would have asked her “why she couldn’t at least talk” to you. I doubt that he would suggest that his extremely irrational, tantrum throwing, unpredictable mother should talk to you.

6. “he told his parents… After this, he called me crying saying he does not know what to do”- I think this was a lie, he did know what to do: he wanted to break up with you, that was his intent and his goal.

Continued quote: “he called me crying saying he does not what to do. I was supportive, I said it  is okay I will stand by you. Give your parents some time.. He kept crying saying they will never accept and he had failed me”- you were thinking that his tears are sincere, the he really didn’t know what to do,  so you were trying to help him figure out what to do, not realizing that he was not conflicted, he knew what he wanted to do.

Continued quote: “I said it has been just one call.. just be patient. He said it will give his mom a heart attack.. in short.. we broke up”- you were still trying to help him, thinking he was conflicted and needed your help. Not wanting your help, but being intent on breaking up with you, he added a weapon to his arguments, the threat that his mother will get a heart attack. He then proceeded to achieve his goal:  “we broke up”.

You wrote: “it literally took one phone call for him to feel helpless and  our relationship to end”- according to what he told you it literally took one phone call. This was a lie. He was not serious about you from the beginning: “When we started dating he was a bit more hesitant to meet my family and friends… I had to convince him to try long-distance in the beginning.. (I) patiently waited five months for him to see anyone close to me”.

You asked yesterday: “I need clarity as to how someone does what he did to another individual. How can a person be so unempathetic?”

Seems to me that he is very rational, calculating, generally unemotional. He is not guided by empathy but by cold calculations. You referred to him as “asocial”, not having friends, and he told you that he was not close with his family in India (every liar sometimes tells truths, no one lies all the time).

“he told me that I would be ‘bad news’ to them since they never have known he even dates and has a girlfriend”- if this is true, then how distant does a man in his late twenties need to be from his parents, for them to never know that he had one, singular date in his life? And why would a man keep his parents so unknowing of his personal life? I am thinking that he grew up very much alone in his home, very much emotionally removed from his parents. I don’t think he feels comfortable with emotional closeness. And honesty goes together with emotional closeness.

You wrote yesterday: “I am still confused as to what was the main reason behind his mother’s unacceptance and because of his poor communication skills throughout the relationship and even now, I cannot understand. I am also not asking him for more explanations because I am tired.. I feel like I babysat the whole relationship”- remember I wrote to you in the beginning of this post that part of you believes that he lied to you and part of you does not believe it? In this quote you think of him as a child, immature, misguided, instead of the calculating adult that he is. Also, you think that his problem was “poor communication skills” when it wasn’t. The problem was that he lied to you repeatedly. You have been and are confused at times not because he is an immature child with poor communication  skills, but because he is a calculating adult who lies.

If you believe lies, and the lies paint a confusing story, then you are confused. If you know the truth, you are no longer confused. You may not like the truth, but at the least, you will no longer be confused, and with clarity, you will be able to move on.

Better not ask him for explanations because you will be getting more lies that will maintain or even increase your confusion.

“But what  is he trying to achieve by sending me these messages?”- it makes him feel  better to send you whatever messages he is sending you, when he does.

“I guess I am hoping if somehow in my head I can make sense of the whole situation, then it will be easy to be at peace”- clearing confusion does give peace. You are an honest person, from what you shared, your family members are also honest, at least with you. But you do know that there are people out there in the world who are not honest and who lie, don’t you?

Knowing this is true makes it possible to imagine that you happened to meet and get invested in one of the many  people out there who are dishonest and who lie. It is painful and mind boggling to accept this unfortunate reality, but accepting it because it is real, is what will liberate you from confusion and bring you clarity and peace of mind.

anita

Dear Noor:

Your bouquet of flowers brought a smile to my face and having a nice cup of tea with you was most pleasant, thank you!

I now understand what you meant by referring to him as a child, and it fits my understanding of him. It does not surprise me at all that although he is calculating, he is  also unwise. After all, he broke up with you, and that’s a most unwise move on his part.

I am sure the two of you shared good, honest moments. It is a shame that overall he isn’t an honest man. Unlike in cartoons and some movies, where there are characters that are always good, and characters that are always bad, real people are not all one way or the other. Seeing the whole picture, the whole person, over time, and in different circumstances, is what’s needed so to evaluate a person as honest or not, empathetic or not.. an overall good person or not.

Blocking him if he messages you again, or before he messages you again, is a good choice.

“I fell for someone who was dishonest and a liar but my heart was pure, my intentions were good so I don’t have anything to feel guilty of. I can cherish my qualities and hope to find someone that is more compatible, loving, and caring for me”- beautifully said. It makes my day reading your words!

Don’t be a stranger, Noor-  post anytime you feel like posting, if and when you do,  and I will be reply to you every time.

anita